Spencer knew JJ wasn't okay. And JJ knew Spencer knew JJ wasn't okay – hence her trying so hard to project that she's fine even after having been pistol whipped by the unsub. She's still seeing stars from the initial impact, plus slamming her head into concrete as she fell. It's not her first rodeo with head injuries, and she's sure she's got a concussion she'll have to get checked out later. But even after the man was subdued and Spencer was running towards her, JJ was carefully sliding her mask back into place. She was already holding out a hand, asking Spencer to help her up as he was lowering himself to his knees beside her.
"Stay down a second, JJ," he murmurs, searching her eyes. JJ scoffs and rolls them, making his task that much harder. That tiny line appears between his brows, which lower in concentration.
"I'm fine, Spence," she tries to soothe him, to no avail. JJ's sure she doesn't look like the picture of health, but she didn't get this far in life without some grade A bluffing skills. Unfortunately, Spencer knows his team's tells like the back of his hand. Still, it doesn't stop her from trying.
Spencer reaches out a hand to cup her chin, gently holding her head in place while he assesses her. "Let me look at your eyes," he asks, gentle but insistent, and JJ acquiesces with a sigh.
"I'm fine," JJ says again, blue eyes meeting hazel in what she hopes is a reassuring manner. She permits him exactly ten seconds to check her pupils. Then, with Spencer scrambling to help her, she's climbing stubbornly back to her feet.
Only to find the world immediately tilting on its axis.
For a moment, it's all JJ can focus on – that, and the sudden ringing in her ears. Then she feels familiar arms wrap around her waist and bring her back to the ground. JJ keeps struggling weakly, even at the vague awareness that she shouldn't be upright even if she can't recall why.
The world starts to fade to flashes of color amongst black and gray tunneling edges, and suddenly there's hard concrete under her body again. The next instant – at least, she thinks it's the next instant – Spencer's face is filling her vision. His lips are moving, but it takes longer than it should before the sound returns to the picture at hand.
"JJ, stay down," he's telling her, again, his tone somewhere dead center between soothing and barely repressed panic.
Is she still fighting him?
"Damn it, JJ, stay down!" The soothing is gone now, replaced almost entirely by unmasked panic, and it finally gets JJ to freeze in place.
The world swims above her, a fitting counterpart to the rushing in her ears. She catches glimpses of action, flurries of activity above her; Hotch with his radio to his mouth, saying something that her brain isn't processing; Spencer feeling the side of her head; bloody fingers standing out against the calmest blue sky. She can't parse the words that Spencer is saying to her anymore, but she catches the tone.
That tone he uses with victims, to tell them everything's going to be okay even when it's not.
Great.
It's then that JJ notices the tears pricking her own eyes. Instantly, there's a hot rush of blood to her cheeks at the realization. She must have knocked her head pretty hard for her walls to crumble so easily, she thinks, because she is nothing if not the master of holding herself together by sheer will.
At least long enough to make it to a safe place to break. To lick her wounds in private, where no one can see her come apart at the seams. Not again.
Spencer meets her eyes then, and she knows he sees it. If she had the words, she would tease him for the horrified look on his face; she'd joke that he's uncomfortable with a woman crying, and try to get him to take the bait so they don't have to live in this freefall of a moment.
But he won't, and even through the haze of pain and disorientation, she knows it. Spencer angles his body then, trying to shield her from the flurry of activity from her other team members. Giving her a modicum of shelter to shatter under. JJ feels the weight of Hotch's gaze on her for a few seconds and then he's turning away; standing guard without witnessing the fullest force of her breakdown.
And JJ whimpers.
A few words break through the fog. "…Got you, JJ… Stay with me… Breathe…"
Pain. Sharp, pounding, stabbing pain that steals almost every ounce of her focus. Spencer's voice breaks through again. A little louder, but not enough to hurt her head more than it already does. "Just breathe through it. I've got you."
But JJ can't breathe, because she can't think of anything besides the pain or how she's completely coming apart in front of her team. Out in the open, in the light of day, as if a pistol whipping is the worst fate she's suffered. JJ squeezes her eyes shut, trying in vain to force the tears back in. Instantly, Spencer is trying to coax her to open them again, but his voice is drowned out by the wail of approaching sirens.
With every second the sirens grow louder, and JJ wishes she would just lose consciousness because she just. can't. take. the assault on her senses from every angle. The screeching rises to a fever pitch, then there's a sound like crunching gravel and the sirens miraculously cut out. If she wasn't already choking back sobs, JJ is sure she would have started at the blissful moment of sudden silence.
Rushing footsteps, unfamiliar voices, the sound of wheels rolling across concrete. Spencer's voice, informing the paramedics of what happened. Then there's hands touching her, unfamiliar hands, and JJ tries and fails to suppress the flinch before it happens. She feels someone grab her hand and squeeze hard, grounding her, and she manages a shaky breath.
"What's her name?" She hears a man ask. He must be inches away, but it sounds like he's floating above her, somewhere in the stratosphere.
"Special Agent Jennifer Jareau," Hotch cuts in. His tone is all business, with a sharp edge of steel that JJ knows means worry.
"JJ," Spencer hurries to amend.
"JJ, honey, can you open your eyes for me?" A woman's voice now. Gentle, but urgent. JJ opens her eyes the tiniest fraction, wincing at the instant assault by the sun. "There you go." The woman must be smiling encouragingly; JJ can hear it in her voice. But even when she forces her eyes open, she can't get them to focus on the paramedic's face. The woman has a penlight in her hand, and she holds it out to show JJ. "Alright, I'm just going to take a quick peek at your eyes."
JJ does her best to keep her eyes open, and the paramedic is blessedly fast at her job. The light is taken away, and JJ lets her eyes fall back closed for the moment.
"Do you remember what happened?" The man's voice cuts in again. She smells an unfamiliar cologne as he draws nearer again, placing a brace around her neck.
"Pistol… whipped," JJ manages behind clenched teeth. There's a sympathetic tutting from one of the paramedics in response, and Spencer squeezes her hand again.
"Alright hun, we're going to move you on three. One, two, three." On the woman's go, JJ is briefly airborne before being settled onto a stretcher. Spencer's hand is still attached like a vise, and JJ doesn't know at this point who's clinging to whom.
"Go with her." She catches the command from Hotch, low and dangerous. Not a question, an order. As if Reid needed to be given one.
The paramedics move her into the ambulance, locking the stretcher in place. If JJ thought the sun was bad, it has nothing on the blinding lighting in the ambulance. But it's the sharp, sterile smell that brings JJ back to a time and a place buried deep in her memories. A time and place that are about to claw their way out of their grave and return with a vengeance. One of the paramedics clips a pulse ox on her finger, just in time to catch her heart rate ratcheting up.
"Hey, hey, hey. JJ. Stay with me. Breathe," Spencer is instantly trying to soothe. But it's all finally too much, and JJ gives into the encroaching darkness despite her best friend's increasingly frantic shouts.